Archbishop Wood’s Jarrett McClenton waited for Interboro’s Mike Christaldi to boom the opening kickoff of the game. McClenton gobbled up the bouncing ball at the 19-yard line and was off to the races. Eighty-one yards later, he was celebrating in the end zone.

Interboro coach Steve Lennox summed it up perfectly: “We were kind of looking around thinking, ‘What just happened?”

Shellshocked?

“Exactly,” he said.

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Moments later, Wood jumped to a 14-point lead. By the end of the first quarter, it was a three-touchdown deficit. The Bucs didn’t have a solution for the Vikings’ high-powered offense. The dream season, one highlighted with an unexpected run through the District One Class AAA playoffs, ended in the quarterfinal round of the PIAA Class AAA tournament Friday night at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School.

Archbishop Wood advanced to the semifinal round of the state playoffs with a dominating, 35-7 triumph over Interboro. The Vikings take on Allentown Central Catholic in the Eastern Pennsylvania final next weekend. It will be the third time in three years Wood has met Allentown C.C. in states. It will be the rubber match. Wood is vying for its second straight PIAA Class AAA title.

The Vikings (11-2) took care of business Friday night, firing the early salvo and never looking back. Thirteen seconds into the game, it was 7-0. The Bucs would go three-and-out on their first drive.

“We never really got into a rhythm on offense,” said junior linebacker Sonny Armstrong.

Interboro, which isn’t the biggest or fastest defense around, had to find a way to combat Wood’s uber-talented skill players. That mostly included selling out to stop the run, putting eight or nine guys up front.

“We expected them to stack the box and really try to stop us running,” said running back Andrew Guckin, who had a typical Andrew Guckin game with 127 rushing yards and four touchdowns. “They knew what was coming, they knew we were running. We knew … they were going to give us all different kinds of looks and blitzes. But we felt confident that we had a good game plan, like we do every week, and that we would be able to get around the edge, which we did. We wanted to exploit that.”

That’s what happened.

Guckin caught a screen pass from freshman Nick Garlick and darted 41 yards to set up his 12-yard touchdown run to make it 14-0. Later in the first quarter, Guckin brilliantly followed his blocks and burst through the right side of the line and galloped 42 yards to paydirt.

It’s been the same story all season. Guckin makes running the football look like poetry in motion. He doesn’t need to juke or dance around. He outruns defenders and only makes cuts when he absolutely has to.

“Having the line that we have, it makes it real easy on me,” Guckin said. “A lot of the running backs in the state can make those runs, too. A lot of the time, it’s not even me. The holes are so huge that you can run straight through the line and walk into the end zone, literally. We’ve got great downfield blocking from our wide receivers, too. Everybody does their job to make it happen.”

Interboro (11-3) threatened to score before halftime. Trailing 35-0, quarterback Nick Rentos hooked up with his favorite targets, sophomore wide receiver Mark Everton and senior tight end Rashon Fentress, to get within striking distance. But after three straight sacks in the red zone, Rentos was intercepted in the waning seconds.

Everton finished with six catches for 61 yards while Fentress hauled in four catches for 41 yards.